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Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys. It was first released on September 2, 1980 through Cherry Red Recordsin the United Kingdom and later issued by Jello Biafra's own Alternative Tentacles label in the United States. It has been certified gold by the BPI. The best selling and generally the most critically acclaimed album by the Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables has become a major staple of American punk. Information[edit source | editbeta] Musically, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables laid the blueprint for future Dead Kennedys' releases: loud, noisy, fast, but with a sense of dynamics and musical individualism. The surf and rockabilly-inspired riffs owe something to the Ramones' most influential recordings, drawing from early American AM pop and rehashing it in the immediate, aggressive context of punk rock. The chorus of "Let's Lynch the Landlord" is a send-up of "Sister Anne" by the MC5.[7] The lyrics lend a significant bite to the breakthrough of the already strident musical assault. On the original vinyl version Side A was tracks 1-7 and Side B was tracks 8-14. The songs on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables were recorded with minimal overdubs limited to vocals and the addition of rhythm guitar in places.[citation needed]Lead vocalist Jello Biafra's strong political statements on songs such as "California Über Alles" and "When Ya Get Drafted" launched the Dead Kennedys into the political arena. The photo on the front cover, showing several police cars on fire, was taken during the "White Night Riots" of 21 May 1979, that resulted from the light sentence given to former San FranciscoCity Supervisor Dan White for the murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Release variations[edit source | editbeta] *The original back cover featured a found photograph of an old lounge band called the Sounds of Sunshine, with the Dead Kennedys' logo pasted onto the drum kit and skulls and crossbones spliced onto their instruments. The original photograph, as found by Biafra at a garage sale, had no identifying remarks on it whatsoever, and was used because the band thought it was "hilarious". Somehow Warner Wilder, the former vocalist of the defunct lounge band learned of the photo and threatened to sue the Dead Kennedys.[8] The back cover was reprinted with the heads of the band members cut off, but this solution was found to be unsatisfactory to the Sounds of Sunshine, forcing an entirely different photo of four old ladies in a living room (with the Alternative Tentacles bat mascot pasted over a picture frame).[9] When Cleopatra Records reissued Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables in 2002, the original unbeheaded lounge band picture reappeared.[10] The 25th Anniversary "Deluxe Reissue" co-released by Cherry Red Records and Manifesto Records in 2005 used the old ladies photograph, but with the Dead Kennedys logo substituted for the Alternative Tentacles Bat[11][12] *Early IRS pressings featured the cover tinted orange with black lettering. This cover variation was not authorized by the band. According to a late-80s interview with Goldmine magazine, IRS told the band they wanted to make the domestic version different from the Cherry Red import, to which Biafra claimed to have told IRS, "Yeah, inferior to the original — change it back!" [9] During a 1981 performance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., Biafra mentions, "Some of you stooped so low as to buy our wonderful album, even with the shitty Disneyland orange cover which was not our idea." *Post-IRS, pre-Alternative Tentacles pressings on IRS's Faulty Products subsidiary added "Police Truck" to the middle of the Side A sequence, between "Let's Lynch the Landlord" and "Drug Me".[13] *Some Cherry Red vinyl pressings added "Too Drunk to Fuck" to the end of Side A.[14] *Pirate pressings of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (as well as the next two Dead Kennedys releases, In God We Trust Inc. and Plastic Surgery Disasters) were manufactured in Italy, Spain and Portugal. According to Biafra, these pressings were manufactured by someone who retained the master parts from defunct Italian licensees and put out what Biafra described as "Clorox bottle-quality pressings". These pressings were sold by a cut-out distributor to record stores that were, in Biafra's words, "too snooty" to deal with the independent distributors that Alternative Tentacles dealt with.[9] *The run-out groove of the early Alternative Tentacles pressings as well as early Cherry Red pressings includes the text "Well?? Who ARE the Brain Police???" - a reference to the song "Who Are the Brain Police?" by The Mothers of Invention.[citation needed] Track listing[edit source | editbeta] All songs written and composed by Jello Biafra, except where noted. Category:1980 albums